Leslie and Wendy - I've been worried about you! Glad to hear you're both okay. Leslie, I know you're on the water so I was holding my breath waiting for word. We got winds and rain (in northwest Florida) and lost our fence again, but we are so blessed. I lived in Ocean Springs/Biloxi for three years, and we heard our old neighborhood was under water to the roof tops. I could only get in touch with one of our friends who fled to Destin (we all worked at a casino together) and she was crying, not knowing if she had a home to go home to. This is so much worse than Ivan. It's just heartbreaking.

Thanks for your concerns. We are safe, just wet and dirty. I can't wait for AC. It is absolutely amazing to see the national guard w/ automatic rifles keeping the peace at gas stations b/c we are quickly running out of fuel around here. In fact, I don't think you can get it anymore. It is so hot and the bugs are taking over, but I still feel very fortunate and lucky compared to MS and LA. I've not seen much TV, but am shocked by what I've seen. I don't know when we will get power, and feel funny complaining about it when I consider how lucky we are otherwise. I'll update when I can. Thanks for your concern. I don' know when my work email will be up, and until then use lgweeks@gmail.com.
Thanks again, Leslie

I spoke with Leslie this morning - it'll be a long time before she has access to the internet to post her own response. She and her family are safe, the home survived, but her office is under water so she can't go to work (too bad). She said the heat, humidity, bugs and stench are the worst. They are without power with no sign of it returning anytime soon.

I live in Mobile and we're safe. We lost a storm door and every inch of our yard is covered with debris, but there is no damage to our home. We don't have power and have been told it could be weeks before we get it back. As miserable and hot as we are, we were very fortunate.

I am actually at work today and am glad to be here because their is power here and daycare had power also, so the girls are better off there than at home.

Most of my husband's family lives in Biloxi and 3 of them are without homes. They are all safe, but have lost everything. It is so eerie around here, there were at least 100 cars waiting to get into a small gas station by my house at 6:45 this morning. They are not even selling gas so everyone was waiting to go in and buy whatever they could. We live off of HWY 98, that goes directly into Mississippi so most of the people that were waiting were from Mississippi and this was the closest store they could get to.

Leslie, I hope you are safe. My heart goes out to everyone in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Thinking of you around Mobile - especially Leslie (LGW) she's across Mobile Bay. I know she works in Mobile and her house has been hurricane ready since Ivan..hope you are all safe and well and in a good place.